Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

It has only been a few days since Ubuntu 9.04 aka the Jaunty Jackalope was released but we're already thinking about the next Ubuntu release: Karmic Koala (9.10).

Following what came with Jaunty, the desktop version of 9.10 will feature even faster boot times. Yes, even faster than 17.5 seconds, plans Mark Shuttleworth. Adopting to what Red Hat always had, the Ubuntu team is plans to incorporate a graphical boot (no more usplash) supported by all video cards. They are also focusing hard on netbook support as well as their netbook edition for low powered netbooks which will now support a larger range of netbooks available in the market.

Ubuntu may make an exception as the team claims that the netbook edition is so built that it would boot in 25 seconds. Now that’s a netbook! For both the desktop and netbook release, the dev team is considering a change from the classic brown shade in the default theme ‘Human’. The brown theme has been there since the beginning and is one thing that people are tired of in Ubuntu. Well, now they can have a new shiny and snappy theme and they can rule the world with it.

Further expanding the cloud computing features that came with Jaunty Jackalope, Ubuntu is now adapting to the Eucalyptus project which will further allow people to create and deploy their own clouds by using simple tools. It will enable webmasters to create an Amazon EC2-style cloud in your own data center, on your own hardware. Mark Shuttleworth notes:

It’s no coincidence that Eucalyptus has just been uploaded to universe and will be part of Jaunty - during the Karmic cycle we expect to make those clouds dance, with dynamically growing and shrinking resource allocations depending on your needs.

Apparently, amongst other features, 9.10 will probably sport a new Gnome version and X.Org server for better hardware support.

Flavors of Ubuntu like Kubuntu and Xubuntu will feature the above though they will also come with their own specific additions like an updated KDE 4.3 for Kubuntu which is gaining popularity these days. We all have our eyes set on the Koala for its ambition to take over OSX in design (and pwn Windows for everything and anything).

You can follow the release cycle for Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala to keep a tab on its progress.